"Never has there been such a fuss about a bloke moving his office next door," says Matthew Engel in the FT. "And to the last the process was interminable.

"2.45pm came and went, and the net curtains on the ground floor at Number 10 started twitching. Where was he? Had Mr Blair reneged? Had Mr Brown demurred? ('I've had a good offer to join the board of Permira. I want twice the money or I'm off!') Was either sovereign or new PM banging on a bit? Were they having lunch? Did this mean Britain was without a prime minister? Did this matter?"

But, of course, there is no job Mr Brown wanted more than that of prime minister, and yesterday he got it. He promised to "try my utmost" - his school motto - and several commentators observe that David Cameron's equivalent ("Floreat Etona") does not carry quite the same weight.

The news is so profoundly unshocking that front-page headlines proved a real challenge. The Telegraph quotes from Mr Brown's slightly lugubrious "speechette" at the door of No 10: "I have heard the need for change ... now let the work of change begin."

"Gordon croaks, 'Let the work of change begin', like some mad professor hunched over a necromantic experiment," writes Boris Johnson. "What he means is 'let the blizzard of legislation continue', with all the dire consequences that implies for the size of the state and the burden of tax."

The Times goes for a low-key headline that hints at its doubts about Mr Brown's longevity in No 10: "The new tenants". "GORD HELP US NOW!" splashes the Express bad-temperedly. "What can we expect from the man who stole our pensions?"

Cherie Blair's farewell to the press was not a fond one. "Bye. I don't think we'll miss you," she said as she climbed into the car in Downing Street. "Believe me, dearie, the feeling is mutual," growls Quentin Letts in the Mail.

"It was small, petty and venomous, but perhaps it was necessary, because it reminded us why it was time for everyone to move on," says the Mirror's Brian Reade. "We'd grown out of love with each other."

For the moment, the papers are very much enamoured of Sarah Brown. "[She] has not gone through any feminist hand-wringing," explains Sarah Sands in the Mail. "She adopted her husband's name at the wedding, explaining: 'It's just simpler.' ... Discretion and tact are her outstanding qualities." The phrase "Gordon's rock" crops up frequently. "Gordon clearly relies on his brilliant wife," says the Mirror's Sharon Hendry. "At a recent dinner party he was reportedly looking rather unsociable. Sarah sent him a note saying: 'Talk to the women on either side of you.' He returned it with the scrawl: 'I have.'"

Mr Blair received a standing ovation as he left the Commons after his final session of prime minister's questions. "Clapping is taboo enough, but for MPs of all sides, left and right, to be on their feet was stunning to behold," says Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian. "If the Tories had clapped Margaret Thatcher in 1990, which they did not, Labour MPs would have sawn off their own hands rather than join in ... The result was an image so strong it threatened to steal the story from the coming man." Mr Brown stood on the wrong spot for the photographers: they yelled at him to move so they could take in the '10' on the door.

The Times publishes a rather curious leader titled, Scottishly, "Philosophie": it is a sort of portmanteau of philosophical bons mots for the new PM, drawing on Confucius, Adam Smith, Schumpeter (a favourite of one Times leader writer), Fukuyama and Max Weber. It urges Mr Brown to have faith in the workings of the market: "He should not allow copies of The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments to stray too far away from him."

The FT is having none of this. "Miliband, Darling set for top," it splashes, tipping the 41-year-old David Miliband for foreign secretary and Alistair Darling for chancellor. Patricia Hewitt, Margaret Beckett, Lord Falconer, Baroness Amos and Tessa Jowell are all leaving the cabinet, the Sun says. Mr Brown's right-hand man, Ed Balls, will get what the paper calls the "plum job" of schools and children's minister. It will certainly be a change for the young economist.

The Independent also flaunts its sang-froid at the departure of a PM whom it long since rejected. The front page is a "manifesto" of demands from luminaries such as Jacques Delors, sculptor Antony Gormley, the director of Liberty, the environmentalist James Lovelock and, inevitably, Bono. Lord Winston, implausibly, wants the new PM to "take politics out of [the] NHS".

Guess who? "Tony Blair has too much talent, energy and political skill to sit around doing nothing. A position helping other world leaders to revive the Middle East peace process is just right for him." Yes, it's Alastair Campbell in the Sun. His optimism is not reflected elsewhere. Germany's foreign minister yesterday criticised the way Mr Blair had been appointed as the Quartet's envoy and said he would be given little influence.

"Mr Blair is not being asked to run talks between the Palestinians and Israel, but he will seek Israel's cooperation in areas such as free movement and access," says the Guardian. That, according to the Times, means the checkpoints that hamper life for Palestinians trying to move between towns in the West Bank.

"No one doubts Blair's status and commitment," a source tells the Guardian. "He came fresh to Northern Ireland, but he's not coming fresh to this. He has an extraordinary amount of baggage. And he's coming in at the worst possible moment."

The Herald Tribune says Hamas activists in the West Bank, where Mr Blair is expected to have an office, have gone into hiding but "remain a powerful presence". "If they want to kill any political deal, they only have to attack a settlement or another Israeli target. Don't think that Hamas is very weak in the West Bank," a stonecutter tells the paper.

One of the centurions who hang around outside the Colosseum in Rome offering to pose for photographs has displayed a violent side, the Times reports.

"We arrived in Rome and thought it was just marvellous," a "wine-loving wealthy businessman" from LA told the Italian police. "We did the classic tour, we visited St Peter's - and then we wanted to see the Colosseum. When we saw the centurions we couldn't resist the temptation of a souvenir photo."

"They were approached by one centurion - a 'big imposing guy' - and happily posed with him. The smiles faded however when they offered him 4 (£2.70), and disappeared altogether when they said 6 was their limit. Offered a $2 bill, the centurion said Italians used them as handkerchiefs. 'He became vulgar and aggressive and started insulting us, then pushing and pulling us. We moved away thinking that was the end of it. Instead he came at us and started attacking us savagely with kicks and punches, screaming and shouting. No one came to our aid.'"